Benefits? No dental, no medical. Yet the intangible benefits are beyond worth.

Parenthood and motherhood specifically is one of the most difficult, longest, toughest callings a person can have in this life. It is a calling that is essential to there being human life. It is a unique relationship.

The sound “m-” is nearly universal of language. The name for mother in almost every language on earth has the sound “m-” in it, which leaves some linguists to suspect that ma might be a word, that relationship, that is semi-hardwired into our brains at birth.

We sometimes say that children have a special place in the mother’s heart. It is actually scientific fact that mother carry a part of their children in them. “Microchimerism” is the recently discovered phenomenon that mothers after birth still have fetal cells – cells of their babies – inside their bodies, for years after. These cells circulate through the mother’s body much in the same way red blood cells do. They have been suspected of having a mild healing effect on the mother. There you go, science says it!

This bond is so essential, it often means we take that fact for granted. It is true. We take our mothers for granted.

By analogy it is similar how we take God’s love in a similar sense for granted. We just assume it will always be there.

When we do that, we fail to understand the depth and extend of what that love is and means: what our mothers do for us and how that is one of the first and greatest gifts God has given us humans. This gift of this parental bound that is so precious.

We take our moms for granted. We take love in all is powerful and precious forms for granted.

It was my wife and I’s 9th anniversary last week. In 9 years, can’t believe all the stuff we have been through. Twins to top it! Twins have meant a lot of sleepless nights for Meagan with tough days trying to wrestle three other kids with two you can’t really put down.

In nine years, I continue to grow in admiration for my wife. How tough she is, how caring and hard working. I told her this knowing she would have to be with the twins in the nursery. See she is still working! I have to admit that I don’t appreciate my wife enough. I don’t know if I ever will appreciate all the ways she makes our families life better.

Husbands I imagine you might feel the same.

And there are moms in this congregation that probably feel like they are taken for granted: undervalued and underappreciated and overworked and overtired.

Today we are going to look at on overlooked mother in the Bible. It is a story with two mothers in it, in competition, actually. It is a messy and at some points sad story, but there is something beautiful about it that way because it shows God in the midst of life, in the midst of what we go through, that God does not forget or neglect what any of us go through, especially mothers.

There is a special, unique, place in God’s heart for those that have the love of a mother.

1. Hagar’s Story, the First Part

So go to Genesis 16. This is the story of Hagar. Her story is a sub-plot of the greater story of Abraham, the patriarch of our faith.

So, the story begins with Abram, before he was named Abraham. God had promised Abram the blessing of offspring, land, protection, and reknown. He was blessed in order to be a blessing to all humanity. That is the Christian calling right there. But, all of that does not sound very comforting when you are nearly 100 years old and don’t have a son.

Abram is a good man, but imperfect. In this culture, it was very common to divorce your wife if you two could not have kids, and it seems to be because Sarai is infertile. So, Abram refuse to divorce Sarai, they hold to their wedding vows for richer or for poorer, but they get frustrated, as you can imagine.

Abram and his wife Sarai decide to take the future into their hands.

Sarai implores her slave girl to be Abram’s lover, a surrogate mother. This is a culture where polygamy and slavery was prevalent. Polygamy is something the New Testament clamps down on, probably because of what happens in this story.

As I said, this is actually a story about two mothers, Sarai and Hagar, but we are going to track with Hagar for what her story has to show us. Both show the frustrations and messiness of life, however.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar;2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”

You can detect the desperation in her voice, can’t you? This is the same woman that also lied about her marital status with Abram earlier in order to get him favor with rich and powerful leaders. She is used to sacrificing her dignity. But, this time it is way too far. It is a desperation that is causing her to lose trust in God. It is a sacrifice that is not hers to make.

Abram agreed to what Sarai said.3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

Can you imagine how awkward this could have been for Hagar? Again this is a time when women are treated like property and here is a poor slave girl that is essentially told to be the wife of Abraham and bear him a son. This would have been a great opportunity, economically speaking, but was it her choice? You begin to see the plight of this poor girl.

When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”

Now, this makes Hagar sound conceited, but according to Mesopotamian customs at the time, if you had more than one wife, one wife could not enslave another. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that this is a bad idea, especially when a slave girl like Hagar is now able to claim that she is the mother of the heir to the entire household. If she is a bit puffed up, its obvious why. This person has gone from being a nobody to somebody, the mother of the heir is also the slave to the wife that did not produce an heir. Do you see how tangled the situation is?

Notice again, Abram’s next mistake, he avoids stepping in and making peace:

6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

She abused Hagar and Abram like so many know about it and did nothing. So, this young pregnant girl ran.

7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”

“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”

This is difficult advice. The angel recommends a path that while it is not adviceable to any abused person today, it will be effective at winning Sarai over and thus allowing her baby to be born and cared for.

How many mothers work terrible jobs or endure terrible circumstances just to provide for their families? Sometimes this is the only option.

10 The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.” {She is given Abram’s promise, God has included her in his plan]

11 The angel of the Lord also said to her:

“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,[a]
for the Lord has heard of your misery.12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”

The blessing is two edged. She is now the mother of a great nation, but God knows this nations will have its problems. This is describing the harsh and militant way of life the Ishmaelite Bedouin live, often at loggerheads with Israel.

13 She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “[El-Roi] You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

15 So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

2. Hagar’s Story, the Second Part

The story continues. It says that when Abram was 99 years old God appeared again to Abram and made a covenant with him. He changes Abram’s name to Abraham. From “Exalted Father” to “Father of Many.” God again promised Abraham an heir through Sarai, renaming her Sarah. After this a bunch more happens, and the story picks up in Chapter 21.

Sarah has a son, she calls him Isaac which means laughter. You can tell these is so much joy in her words, but the celebration is bitter sweet.

Another son means Ishmael is not the heir anymore. Hagar has lost her rank.

Ishmael is on the verge of being a teenager (there is some ambiguity as to how many years have in fact passed), and one day it appears that Ishmael teased young Isaac.

The competition between Sarah and Hagar that was dormant for a decade resurfaces and Sarah urges Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away.

Abraham again concedes and seems to get a message from God that they will be okay.

So, he sends them out of the camp.

But without much water, Hagar and Ishmael started to die of heat exhaustion in the desert.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.

17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

That is a round about way of saying that God came through for Hagar.

This is a story in the midst of life.

The people in this story a deeply imperfect. Abraham seems like a patriarch that is easily swayed. Sarah is desperate, competitive, then conceded. Hagar swings from arrogance to abused.

Mothers competing to make sure their children have the best in life. Their kids security is their security. We all understand that. God understands what a mother goes through.

According to statistics it is getting hard to be a mom these days.

Today, 40% of women who have children under the age of 18 are the primary breadwinners in their family. In 1960, that figure was only 11%! And while 92% of mothers were married in 1960, today only 69% are married.

This means in many cases, moms today are working harder and still their job at home remains the same.

And mothering is heard work: The average mother will have changed approximately 7,300 diapers by the time her baby turns two years old.

Parent life can be stressful: worrying about money and work; worrying about kids school. Are they playing with the right kids? Are they getting good grades? Do I help him with his homework enough? Are we having enough family time? Is my marriage working?

I have not met a single mother today that does not subject herself to grueling, unfair expectations. The judgment and worry, this picture in their heads of being super mom, the worry that they just aren’t good enough.

How Hagar’s Story is Our Story and Hagar’s God is Our God…

This is where this story – this ancient story from a time very distant from ours, from a culture very different from ours, from customs very different – ends up having something to say that is true of our God then as now.

First: Pregnant Hagar, alone, on the run, at the end of her rope, has God appear to her. She does not know what to call this God, so she calls him, El-roi, the God who sees me.

Our God sees what you are going through. Our God understands the struggles that you endure. Our God knows every little sacrifice you make, every thankless deed of goodness and kindness. He feels the same long-suffering love, because that is the same love he has for all of us. Our God sees you.

Second, Our God is a God who keeps his promises, who comes through in the end, who does not fail.

Hagar, who was forced to leave her home, her security and status, all for the safety of her son again, when she is near death and the situation is so hopeless, she lays her child down at a distance because she cannot bear to see him die before her, God in the last moment, shows up again.

He reveals a well for them to drink and revitalize themselves. He comes through on his promise of bring them to safety. The story ends with Ishmael becoming an archer, which is the ancient equivalent of having your son become doctor or something.

Hagar was not Abraham’s first and chosen wife. She was not in the covenant. We will tackle what election means in a few weeks. And this is the remarkable thing. Abraham did a foolish thing having a child with Hagar. He did not trust God, neither did Sarah. When it all went South and Abraham again did not do what was right, God still came through. God in his grace blessed Hagar.

Even though Isaac would be the chosen one from whom Israel and the church would come, God chose in his surprising grace to also bless Ishmael.

God blesses un-expectantly and over-abundantly. He comes through in the end.

The sign outside of our church says the prayers of our mothers are still being answered.

I have often said, I think one of the many cool things we will see in heaven is how our prayers all got answered. And we know our mothers pray long and hard for us.

They pray that we would be healthy. They pray that we would make good choices. They pray that we will succeed in life and find happiness. Our mothers of faith pray that we will come to know the lord.

Can we trust again that God is the God that comes through? He answers prayer. He keeps his promises. He does not always answer them right away or answer them the way we expect. But he does answer them.

Our God is the God that sees us. He is with us not against us. He gave of his life, in the Son, to save us. He will never leave us or forsake us. He will provide, sustain, empower, heal, restore, redeem, and vindicate for he is our father and we our his children.